


There's Always Something

by expoduck



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Feels, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1292452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/expoduck/pseuds/expoduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock discovers something he didn't know about John which, to the world's only Consulting Detective at least, makes the Solar System seem like a minor oversight by comparison.</p>
<p>Post-Reichenbach, but written pre-series 3 - the lovely Mary does not appear. Swearing and fluff kinda do, though. Sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Always Something

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wrestling with this one since June of last year, and now I'm kicking its imperfect arse out the door and onto the internet.

"I see Sergeant Peters finally worked up the courage to give you his number."

"Yeah... Yes, he did."

"Are you going to call him?" Sherlock says, smirking unkindly, clearly expecting an answer in the negative. 

John doesn't answer. He angles his head away from Sherlock, evasively, looking out the cab window. Sherlock's mouth forms a surprised 'O'. 

"You're not serious," Sherlock murmurs. 

John shrugs one shoulder and murmurs, "He's nice. I like him."

"As a friend."

John answers after a short, telling pause, without looking at Sherlock, "For the moment at least." 

"Not really your type, is he?" Sherlock murmurs.

"Tall, nicely-built, big blue eyes and dimples? Yeah, not my type at all. Ugly fucker."

"And male," Sherlock interjects, with the tone of someone pointing out an oversight. 

"Yes. Very male. Quite... _quite_ male," John says with a small, slightly wistful smile which Sherlock sees, reflected in the glass of the cab window. 

Sherlock gapes for a moment, then stammers out, "But... you don't date men! Not once, in our acquaintance, have I known you to pursue a man."

"It's not something I exactly go out of my way to advertise."

"You're the least gay man I've ever met!" Sherlock says, a little too loudly, the cabbie giving them a curious look in the rear view mirror. 

John frowns, looking at Sherlock, and replies in a hushed tone of voice, "Because I like women?"

"Yes!" Sherlock says, utterly unfazed by the cabbie's interest and John's desire for him to keep his voice down.

"I can't like both?" John says, his eyebrows raised.

"You don't _look_ at both."

"Not generally, no. Sometimes my head _does_ get turned, though," John admits. He smiles a little, a teasing tone to his voice as he continues, "I'm surprised you hadn't noticed, brilliant detective like you."

Sherlock scowls deeply and looks away, out the window. "I didn't know I should be looking for it," he mutters.

"Well now you know," John says simply, and turns back to look out his own window.

The rest of the cab ride passes in merciful, if somewhat tense, silence. 

 

\--

 

"I'm off, out," John calls to Sherlock on his way down the stairs, later that evening.

Sherlock pokes his head out of the kitchen door, a frown creasing his forehead.

"Where are you 'off out' to?" he demands.

John stops on the landing and looks up at Sherlock. "Meeting Tony for drinks." 

"Tony?" Sherlock says, his head tilting to one side in query.

"Tony, you know. Peters," John clarifies. When Sherlock is still looking confused, he shakes his head, smiling fondly, and adds, " _Sergeant_ Peters."

Sherlock's eyes widen in surprise. "Already?"

"Yeah, I figured, strike while the iron's hot. No time like the present, and all that," John says, smiling.

"You're eager," Sherlock comments, in a not-entirely-approving tone of voice.

John rubs the back of his neck and his face flushes a pinkish hue.

"Yeah, I suppose I am," he says, with a bashful grin. 

Sherlock leans against the doorjamb, awkwardly, his eyes narrowing as he studies John.

"New shoes," Sherlock observes, " _and_ jeans. Making an effort."

"Of course," John says, a little defensively, unconsciously plucking at the front of his shirt, "Why wouldn't I make an effort?"

Sherlock shakes his head faintly, unable to come up with an answer. John shakes his head, bemused.

"See you later," John says, and bounds down the remaining flight of stairs before Sherlock can reply. He's still staring at spot John just occupied, frowning, when the door to the street closes.

 

\--

 

John arrives home that night a little before midnight and almost has the life frightened out of him when he turns on the sitting room light and Sherlock is just... there.

Sherlock is standing by the sitting room window, his forgotten violin resting on one shoulder. The pointed tip of his bow is resting on the windowsill, Sherlock spinning it idly on its axis, staring at nothing; was doing so in the dark up until a moment ago.

John watches him for a few moments before clearing his throat quietly. Sherlock whirls, suddenly animate, and smiles at John.

"Ah, excellent, you're home," he says, the expression on his face a little too sunny as he lovingly places his violin back in its case. "Did you have a pleasant evening?"

"Yeah, I had a _really_ nice night, actually," John replies, with an easy, slightly tipsy smile. "Really, really good."

Sherlock's eyes narrow as he snaps the lid of his violin case closed without looking, his attention focussed on John.

"You didn't go home with him," he points out.

"Nope," John agrees, with a happy sigh. "Maybe next time."

"But you _did_ kiss him," he says, a reproachful note to his voice.

"Not your business, Sherlock," John says lightly, still smiling as he walks into the kitchen to make tea.

"You did, you kissed him," Sherlock says, moving to sit in his chair but not taking his eyes off John. "Not just a kiss, a proper _snog_. Your shirt is creased, one extra button undone, and you have beard rash on your neck."

"Stop that right now," John says, frowning as he turns to look at Sherlock.

Sherlock's eyes sweep quickly up and down John's body and John shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

"You've been erect tonight," Sherlock says, his eyes narrowing.

" _Sher_ \- How do you-" John says, then stops himself, saying, "Scratch that, don't tell me."

"You were dressing to the right as usual when you left the house," Sherlock says, nodding toward John's groin. "You're more to the left now. That doesn't generally happen when you visit the gents', which means an outside influence caused it. He _touched_ you, didn't he?"

"Sherlock," John says, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing out very slowly, his face heating as he refuses to ask just why Sherlock has apparently been paying so much attention to his groin. "Enough."

"On the first date, John, really?" Sherlock smirks, sitting forward in his seat, enjoying himself. "How many men did you sleep with while I was away?"

John's eyes widen and he clenches his left hand into a fist at the mention of Sherlock's faked death. 

"That- _that_ is none of your _goddamned business_."

"More than five? More than ten?"

"Sherlock, I'm warning you-"

"More than five but no more than ten."

"For God's _sake_ -"

"You enjoyed it, I take it," Sherlock says.

"Sherlock."

"Of course you did, you wouldn't repeat the act with multiple partners if you didn't enjoy it."

"I'm not discussing this with you."

"You don't need to, John. You're an open book to me. I can read the sordid tale, writ large, all over your face."

"Oh, really? Then read this."

John looks at Sherlock, gives him a long, hard, open stare. It is a look full of embarrassment, anger, pain and ...love; it takes Sherlock's breath away. It's a look that says _I wanted every one of them to be you. Every one_. 

Sherlock stares back at John for a few moments in stunned silence. He draws breath to speak - John shakes his head and turns to head for the stairs to his bedroom.

"We're not having this discussion," John says without looking at Sherlock again. "'Night."

John walks out, stomping up the stairs. Sherlock stares blankly at the empty kitchen, wondering how he could possibly have missed all of this.

 

\--

 

Two and a half years ago, John Watson watched as his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, threw himself from a building to his death.

Two full years later, John Watson's best friend returned from the dead.

Sherlock expected there to be drama on his return, or at least a fight, but John had simply made them both a cup of tea, sat him down and said he didn't want to talk about it. They watched crap television that night, or at least John did. Sherlock watched John. 

John moved back into 221b Baker Street two weeks later, joining Sherlock, and they continued on as though their separation never happened. Other than the most basic of explanations, they never even discussed it. Sherlock didn't want to talk about it, and John didn't want to hear it.

Sherlock thought nothing had changed in his absence. John did nothing to challenge that assumption.

It really was only a matter of time until it all came out.

 

\--

 

"You used to always deny it," Sherlock says as John sits down in his chair with tea and toast the next morning.

John frowns, confused. "Deny it?"

"Being gay," Sherlock says.

John looks out the sitting room door into the stairwell up to his bedroom, and back at Sherlock.

"I assumed this conversation ended when I went to bed," John says.

"You've slept?" Sherlock says, surprised.

"Yeah, it's morning."

"Oh," Sherlock says, uninterested, not at all bothered by the fact that he's lost several hours in his mind palace. "You don't deny it anymore. Not once since I've been back have you denied being gay."

"It's too early in the morning for this," John grumbles, shaking his head as he rubs his left eye.

"Why did you deny it, before?" Sherlock says. "When we met," he clarifies.

John frowns, becoming uncomfortable with the early-morning interrogation session.

"Does it matter?" John says, exasperated.

"Clearly it does. Something has changed, it must have. _You've_ changed."

John shakes his head. "I didn't change."

Sherlock tilts his head to one side, his eyes flicking from John's eyes to his hands, to his shoelaces and to his shoulder. He shakes his head slightly, "No, you've changed."

"I haven't changed," John insists, frowning.

"You have," Sherlock says. "It's noticeable, actually. I don't know how I didn't see it before."

"I haven't-"

"You didn't _date men_ before," Sherlock says, his eyes still fixed on John's right shoulder. "I would have known."

"Yeah, well, maybe watching my best friend kill himself made me think about how I was living," John says, his voice suddenly cold.

Sherlock’s gaze snaps back to John's face, his own paling.

"Maybe I don't want to leave anything undone," John says. "Leave anything unsaid."

"You think I left things unsaid?" Sherlock says, his face carefully blank, guarded.

"I think we both did," John says.

"Such as?"

"If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not about to tell you."

"You're planning on leaving it unsaid, then?" Sherlock murmurs, deliberately provoking John.

"No. You don't get to do that," John says, sitting forward in his seat. "You're the one who _left me_. You made me watch you _die_."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic. I didn't really-"

"That's not the point! I thought you were dead. It properly fucked me up for a long time, Sherlock. You were _dead_ and I was _alone_."

"And then I returned! You said we were fine!"

"We are fine currently, yes, but I will _never_ be fine with what you did."

Sherlock frowns deeply. "I explained my reasons. Moriar-"

"Yes, Moriarty, _yes_ , snipers, _yes_ , I fucking _know_ , okay? It doesn't change the fact that I mourned you for _two fucking years, Sherlock_. I sat at your grave and talked to you. I prayed to a god I don't believe in for a miracle. I wasted my time in useless therapy sessions. I told myself the pain would fade, but it didn't; it didn't even start to. I saw you on the street, ran up to you and scared the _shit_ out of complete strangers. I scared myself. I _blamed_ myself. I had nightmares about your fall every single night. Every day when I woke up, you died again in my mind. I _killed_ you in my head, every day... I almost offed myself a couple of times, did you know that?"

Sherlock merely gapes at John, both his brain and mouth in neutral for once.

"No, of course, how could you know? You didn't have to see it. Why would you even care?"

John stands, abandoning his tea and toast, heading for the door.

"I - _John_ , I do _care_."

John turns on Sherlock, narrowing his eyes. "You just didn't at the time?"

"I've always cared. Always."

"You've _always cared? You?_ " John scoffs, hands on his hips, "Sherlock bloody Holmes, unique in all the world, superior to the rest of us mere mortals, _cares?_ Stop the fucking press!"

Sherlock's forehead creases, pained. "John..."

"What happened to 'I'll continue not to make that mistake', hmm? What happened to the man who barely even blinked when his fucking psycho-nemesis- _soul-mate_ blew up a _defenceless, blind grandmother?_ "

"That's enough!" Sherlock roars, surging to his feet. 

John takes a step back into a defensive posture and blinks. 

Sherlock blinks back at him, then shakes his head and whispers brokenly, "Enough, John. Please."

Sherlock speaks again after a few moments of tense silence, but avoids John's eyes as he does so.

"I may not always care about _everything_ , but I do care about _you_. I've _always_ cared about you. You are the one thing, the one _person_ , in my world that I cannot bear to be without. You may not believe me, but I mourned for you too. I did. I would find myself thinking about nothing but what you must be thinking, must be feeling." 

Sherlock swallows thickly before continuing.

"I did things I'm not proud of, while I was away, terrible things that I can't even...” Sherlock lets out a ragged breath. “Things of which I'd never believed myself capable, deeds which I'd only _feared_ I had the potential to... carry out. Deeds which were necessary, but will always be a stain on my conscience. Things I _had to do_ to keep you safe."

John shakes his head, about to speak, but Sherlock cuts him off.

“Knowing that you were out there in the world, going on with your life, without me – it was painful, but it was the objective - that you go on. If you didn’t, nothing mattered; you had to survive me. If you’d been taken from me, really irrevocably _taken_...”

Sherlock pauses, trying to get his cracking voice under control, scrubbing one hand through his hair. He finally looks at John.

"I always _felt_ it, John. Everywhere I went. The emptiness in my chest, a cold absence of the light, the light _ness_ , you bring to my life. I carried you like a phantom limb, like a scar on my... on my heart," Sherlock says, looking away again, obviously uncomfortable with the metaphor but unable to express himself in any other way. "I walked through the world as half a man, haunted by the ghost of the man you made me. Mourning my best friend, my _only_ friend, and _so alone_. You were ripped from my life just as suddenly as I was from yours. Like we'd both died that day."

"But you... you knew I was still here. Where you'd left me. You knew you could come back."

"I didn't. I didn't know if I'd survive unravelling Moriarty's web. Sometimes I didn't know if I'd even survive the night. I almost died on several occasions. I ended up in hospital twice. Each time, I woke up looking for you, asking for you. Each time, I hoped you'd have found me and would be sitting at my bedside, waiting to tell me what an idiot I'd been," Sherlock speaks, getting more and more worked up with each word. "But I was too clever for my own good. Too convincing. My deception of you was so complete that-"

"Sherlock-"

"-you didn't know to look for me. It was all I wanted, to be found. How could you let me down like that? The most surprisingly intuitive and resourceful man I've ever known, and even you couldn't find me. I was so lost without you. So _lost_. All I wanted was for you to _find me_."

John steps forward quickly and pulls Sherlock into a rough hug. Sherlock struggles, trying to push him away, but it's half-hearted and John is all quiet strength. Sherlock buries his wet face against John's neck and surrenders to the fierce hold the shorter man has on him. He returns the embrace with a desperate sob.

"I've got you, Sherlock," John murmurs, one strong hand rubbing the detective's heaving back. "It's okay."

John holds Sherlock until his breathing gentles, until he can feel the man pulling himself together, bracing himself.

Sherlock looks at John for a brief instant, then quickly leans down and crushes his lips against John's. John's eyes widen in alarm and he doesn't respond. There is a long moment where neither of them dares move, but then Sherlock pulls back, an utterly horrified expression on his face.

Sherlock breathes out in a rush, "God, I'm so sorry. I didn't-"

John grabs the front of Sherlock's shirt and reels him in, pulling him down into a desperate, rough kiss. Sherlock lets out a surprised groan and wraps his arms around John, bunching his hands in the back of his jacket, pulling him close. 

There is no gentleness in the kiss, no time to savour taste or texture of lips. The kiss is grief, sadness, reunion, joy, and anger all rolled into one physical act. It is frustration and loneliness and affection so deep both men feel as though they may drown in it. It is the culmination of everything that they have been to one another and everything they have been through, both together and apart. It hurts both the heart and the mouth and John feels tears on his cheeks without knowing if they are his or Sherlock’s – maybe both. The kiss is perfect in its imperfection; it is _them_.

Sherlock pulls back after a long while and looks down at John, the redness in the whites of his eyes making his strange, otherworldly irises seem luminous, seem all the more strange and otherworldly. His hands go to the sides of John's neck, his long thumbs stroking the carotid arteries tenderly.

"You must know I love you by now, John. You simply must."

John breathes out very slowly, looking up at Sherlock.

"Yeah, I'm getting that," John murmurs, his forehead creasing into the worried frown Sherlock imagined, in the hospital rooms, continents away.

Sherlock brushes his mouth against John’s frown, is completely unable to resist the urge to smooth it away with his lips.

"I don't expect anything of you," Sherlock says, murmuring the words against John's forehead. 

"That's disappointing," John says, softly. "I've always enjoyed exceeding your expectations."

"And you generally do."

"You need to have some in order for me to do it."

"I expect you to stay," Sherlock says without hesitation, pulling back to look down at John. "Stay with me."

"That was never in question," John says. "You were dead and I still didn't leave you. Couldn't."

Sherlock kisses John for a long time after that. How could he not? When they finally pause for breath, they have lost two hours, three buttons between them and John’s phone somewhere in the couch. John is on his back, pressed into the seat of the couch with Sherlock lying atop him, their legs tangled and their lips tingling. John has learned that Sherlock’s body is not nearly so bony, uncomfortable and cold as he’d thought it would be – quite the opposite, actually - and Sherlock has made the surprising discovery about himself that he enjoys cuddling and being cuddled, although he would deny it if anyone asked him. They lie there together, catching their breath, lips brushing softly every now and then, sharing a smile upon catching one another’s eye.

"You haven't said that you love me too," Sherlock eventually points out.

"I know that."

"Are you going to?"

"Do I need to?"

"I'm not entirely sure how these things are supposed to work, but yes, I think you need to. I'm given to understand that it's the done thing."

John buries his smile against Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock holds John a little more tightly.

"You can't just read it in my eyes?" John mumbles against Sherlock's shirt.

"Well..." Sherlock murmurs. "Sometimes even I need to have the obvious spelled out to me."

Sherlock squeezes John gently when he feels a series of gentle taps and pauses, made by John's index finger against his spine. A slow smile creeps across his lips.

"I didn't know you knew Morse code," Sherlock murmurs.

"Didn't know I was bi, either."

"Good point."

"Or that I fancy you rotten."

"Oh, I knew that."

"You what?"

"That first case, dinner at Angelo's. I knew you fancied me."

"But you didn't know I was bi?"

"I assumed it was just me. I'm rather special, don't you know."

"A rather special twat."

"You say 'twat', I hear 'I love you'. You see, we're perfect for one another."

"Only because nobody else would have us."

"Me, perhaps. But you? They're lining up for you."

"Hardly."

"Sergeant Peters?"

"Snores."

Sherlock pulls back to look at John, his eyes searching his face, his mouth a tense, straight line. He examines John for only a couple of seconds before relaxing.

"A joke?"

"I don't put out on the first date, Sherlock."

Sherlock examines John's face for another couple of seconds.

"Take me somewhere nice and you might change that," John adds after a moment.

Sherlock smiles at John and his smile is returned, John's expression unguarded, radiating warmth.

"I know just the place. The owner owes me a favour. It’s quite an interesting story, actually-" 

John cuts off Sherlock’s explanation with another long, thorough, unhurried kiss, a smile on his face.

 

_The End_


End file.
